Posted
by
Zonk
on Saturday April 14, 2007 @06:26PM
from the more-active-than-chess dept.

geddes writes "World chess champion turned opposition leader Gary Kasparov was arrested this morning while leading an march through Moscow in opposition to Russian President Vladamir Putin. Kasporov is a leader of the 'Other Russia' coalition which has been banned by the government from appearing on TV, and had been denied a marching permit. From the New York Times: 'Essentially barred from access to television, members of Other Russia have embraced street protests as the only platform to voice their opposition ahead of parliamentary elections in December and presidential elections next March. Early this month, Mr. Kasyanov's and Mr. Kasparov's Web sites were blocked, though it was unclear by whom.' Kasparov was later released from detention, though he was still fined for participating in the event."

Early this month, Mr. Kasyanov's and Mr. Kasparov's Web sites were blocked, though it was unclear by whom.' Kasparov was later released from detention, though he was still fined for participating in the event."

Regarding your sig... there are over 200 million cars in the US which, together, are "equivalent to 80 Bin Ladens" in terms of carnage. Therefore, any single car like mine is roughly 80/200,000,000 or 0.0000004 Bin Ladens.

The source or cause of the fatality is not really relevent to the point. Think about it this way. Compare the amount of money spent on cancer ir aids research by the government to amount spent fighting terrorism. How many americans (not including solders in Iraq) die each year because of each of those? Think about it statistically. How are you most likely to die? Terrorist attack, auto accident, choking on a piece of food, or cancer? How much money is spent on prevention of each of those items listed

The U.S. Department of Transportation's National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) has released preliminary projections on motor vehicle traffic crash fatalities and injuries during 2005. According to a preliminary report, 43,200 died on the nation's highways in 2005, up from 42,636 in 2004. Injuries dropped from 2.79 million in 2004 to 2.68 million in 2005, a decline of 4.1 percent.

What the hell are you talking about? If you'll look above global terrorism in the past 39 years, barely passes the number of deaths caused by cars in 2005 in the US alone. There are better sources for information than wikipedia. You're wrong, you're just wrong.

Part of the story is the other participants in the opposition movement. Despite his apparent popularity in the West, Kasparov's participation alone probably would not have caused the permits to be denied.

A gallery of news photos [lenta.ru] from the event may help to understand the story better. I am not going to try explaining the backgrounds of all the opposition groups, but one of them is called "national-bolsheviks" and even a quick glance [lenta.ru] at their symbols [lenta.ru] may suggest that the West would not want the leaders of th

A gallery of news photos from the event may help to understand the story better. I am not going to try explaining the backgrounds of all the opposition groups, but one of them is called "national-bolsheviks" and even a quick glance at their symbols may suggest that the West would not want the leaders of this movement to rule in Russia. Some "national-bolshevik" events have turned violent in the past, so the Russian Federal and Moscow City governments may have a legitimate security concern when considering the location and type of these events.

You conveniently forget to note that National Bolsheviks are only one party in the present anti-Putin coalition [theotherrussia.ru], which includes pretty much everyone from the USSR-nostalgic communists to liberal democrats dreaming of Westenized Russia. What more, there is nothing "bolshevik" and very little "nationalist" in the present-day NBP - after its leader Eduard Limonov has backed the liberal opposition in the days of the Khodorkovsky affair, the hard-liners left the party. As it is, it's essentially a unitarian / democratic socialist party.

In this case, the authorities actually did allow the opposition meeting on one of squares in Moscow, but not the preceding march starting from a different square. So there was no total ban, but the opposition did not get everything they wanted. The response of Western governments to the anti-globalization marches may be a reasonable analogy.

Absolutely not. The response is not to the marshes themselves, but to the vandalism that occurs during them. There was none in this case - it was a peaceful demonstration beaten up by police forces (including special units) and the army. The whole thing about them being allowed to meet but not marsh, while officially true, turned out to be bullshit as well - young men who looked like potential participants were picked by the police right as they left the metro, before they could even reach the square where they could, presumably, legitimately protest. A few people who came to join the march from other cities were detained right at the rairoad stations as they arrived.

You might want to watch the video - a report [youtube.com] on a Russian TV station (as far as I know, the only one that even mentioned the whole thing). It's more telling than the pictures, even if you can't understand Russian. Here's another one [youtube.com] (not normally available in Russia), though that one is hardly impartial. Still worth watching for the pictures, though. Also, here [livejournal.com] are a few more photos, made by a participant, that show just how many forces were involved in quelling this. Note the army trucks with people in the uniform inside on the photo with McDonalds.

but that doesn't excuse it. It was apparently about AUD50 (from the ABC [abc.net.au].

Anyway, this is just another example of how legitimate protests are squashed by authorities. If Putin and Co continue to suppress the opposition, I wonder if Mr Berezovsky will carry out his threat to have a "Russian [bbc.co.uk] Revolution" [guardian.co.uk]?

Meh, and you wonder why some of the old people want the Soviet Union back.

"this is just another example of how legitimate protests are squashed by authorities. "

The US is only one or two steps behind in this. I've seen protesters that wanted to be infront of the UN herded into "first amendment zones" six blocks away out of sight of TV cameras and delegates. Things like flash-mobbing don't work because the cops have double agents in most politically active organizations. So how are the common people supposed to be heard, about a specific issue?

Since the protesters are typically a vocal minority whose tactics include property destruction and disrupting the lives of people who don't agree, I say turn the hoses on em.

I say this as a former victim of a job in downtown DC, so I know what it's like to get caught in the whirlwind. There's nothing peaceful about some hippie flinging a brick through the Starbucks where you're trying to get a coffee because he doesn't like milk.

If Putin is truely popular because of his faith in Russia, and Kasparov is not, why won't Putin let Kasparov be heard and shouted down by the people? Let Putin's rule stand on it own merit, not propped up by police enforcement.

You will get arrested if you don't have a permit. It's a great excuse authorities anywhere can leverage. Remember "freedom cage [google.com]" - a designated protest zone at last GOP convention? Guess what happened when you tried to gather outside of the designated zone?

Kalamazoo, Michigan -... When the protester refused to enter the protest zone, but insisted on standing where other people had been allowed to gather, he was arrested....

St. Louis, Missouri -... Two protesters carrying signs critical of the President's policy on Iraq were ordered into a "protest zone" approximately one-quarter mile away, a location completely out of sight of the building. When the protesters refused, they were arrested....

Neville Island, Pennsylvania -... But when retired steelworker Bill Neel refused to enter the protest zone and insisted on being allowed to stand where the President's supporters were standing, he was arrested for disorderly conduct and detained until the President had departed....

Columbia, South Carolina -... When Bursey insisted on being allowed to remain where other members of the public stood, he was arrested on state and federal criminal charges....

Cindy Sheehan getting arrested for wearing an anti-war t-shirt was a pretty good example of how in the US, our basic assumed freedoms are not exactly what they appear.I've watched plenty of people get arrested for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I don't want to make this a Dem vs. Rep thing, being a worthless leader is hardly a party specific character trait. Most of the absurd arrests are from an overzealous idiot somewhere relatively low on the totem pole, but violations of the basic ri

In lots of places, even if you are denied a permit, you are still allowed to protest. And if you don't do anything besides not move on when told to... Well you can't be legally arrested. (I believe this is the case in all of Australia, but at least NSW and Tasmania.)That doesn't stop you being arrested however. Charged. Forced to fly across the country to one court date. Forced to get a lawyer. Get charged with other charges because the cops are trying to blackmail you into pleading guilty to a "les

We like to think we have freedom of speech and a peaceful protest like this wouldn't be broken up here. That is false. In Russia they require permits and his permit was denied. He and some other protesters were arrested for marching without a permit.

Most don't know that here in the US you are required to have a permit also, just as they did in Russia they can refuse to grant your permit will try to silence your protest and just happened in Russia. If you March anyway you WILL be arrested for trying to exercise your free speech.

OMG.. you mean people would actually SEE and/or NOTICE the protestors in the streets, and possibly be educated and recruited to their cause?!

Blocking traffic is a criminal offense. Of course, you could always break into people's houses and verbally assault them with your views on how you deserve bigger hand-outs. You're entitled to commit that criminal offense too, right?

yes, they are the most extreme of right wing. right wing is defined as reactionary, and aimed at the prevention of and reversal of change...the restoration of as much of the "old way of doing things" as possible. in this case, it means putting certain minorities in the place they were before those pesky liberals and their civil rights movement.

there was a huge protest against a G8 meeting in florida (around '02 i think).

they had flawless preparation, including all permits.

the pro-globalist heavyweights who controlled the area simply had cops trample them anyway, declaring them "anarchist agitators" to the media, which loyally parroted their excuse to the rest of the nation, quickly burying any potential public outrage at the new police state of florida.

You may be required to apply for a permit to protest in the U.S., and there is no guarantee that you will get one from a given municipality. Often you will have to agree to stay inside a "First Amendment Zone" [wikipedia.org] set up as a chain link fenced-in area in some place where nobody sees you except homeless people who can't vote.

If you March anyway you WILL be arrested for trying to exercise your free speech.

You'll be arrested for marching without a permit, stopping traffic (a criminal offense), loitering on government land, breaking windows, torching cars, other vandalism, assaulting police officers and each other, and littering. Pretending that your demonstration is legitimate doesn't allow you to commit criminal and civic offenses, though many protesters like to pretend otherwise. "We're angry that our hand-outs aren't big eno

We like to think we have freedom of speech and a peaceful protest like this wouldn't be broken up here. That is false. In Russia they require permits and his permit was denied. He and some other protesters were arrested for marching without a permit.

I think you'll find that it's a lot harder to get a permit to hold an anti-government protest march in Russia than it is here. You'll also find that what the government gets away with calling "an anti-government protest march" is whole lot broader in Russia than here.

It's not that we're that much friendlier to dissent than Russia (though we are). It's simply that there are more safeguards here. Somewhat eroded [epic.org], alas, but still better than Russia's.

If you March anyway you WILL be arrested for trying to exercise your free speech.

You won't be arrested for your free speech, you will be arrested for blocking traffic, and/or blocking access to buldings. You're free to peacefully march along public access pedestrian sidewalks and in public access parks, so long as you don't restrict others rights to do the same, and don't violate any loitering ordinances.

In short, you may need permits for certain deeds, but never for words.

Putin has Russia locked down almost as tight as Stalin. Only, instead of killing people, he just chases them out of the country, or locks them up. Remember how one political dissident's lawyer recieved death threats, and fled to Amsterdam? Yeah, guess who ordered the death threats. Hint: It's not Yeltsin. He owns most of the TV and media outlets - he can clean up his mess by making it a non story. I wish Kasparov was only the first example of Putin's ironhold grip on political discussion.

You, sir, have no idea what you are talking about. Putin is a hardliner and his measures to stifle the free press rightly deserve criticism, but this is nothing like it was during Stalin's regime. Stalin killed 20 million Russians and was a paranoid maniac. Putin is not even running for re-election.

I recently got US citizenship and was debating on what to do with by Russian passport. But, I have no desire to be in any way associated with a dictatorship. I guess I will be returning it shortly, with a note describing why.

Well, I am not much of a martyr. I already escaped one regime and its associated mandatory military service. It seems the least I can do is kind of bark at them from safe distance under a small risk that I can not flee to Canada if things go really bad here. If enough Russian expatriates renounce their citizenship and explain why they are doing it, it's one way to send a message.

Well, they don't have a dictatorship for sure, although Republicans+Democrats do constitute a ROWM (Rich old white male) aristocracy. Aristocracy is better than dictatorship, because majority of any group is not insane and can oust total nutcases or keep their power in check. Care to suggest a country that combines democracy, freedom (to disagree with majority), compassion (helping decent people get over hard times), responsibility (global w

Liberal Democracy isn't the only ideology still remaining after the fall of the Soviet system. Neo-Facism and the cult of the leader in Russia. The One Party State in China. Theocracies in the Middle East. Tin Pot dictators ruling their roosts all across the third world. Even the "liberated" countries of eastern europe are falling back into authoritarianism.

And faced with this, what are liberal democratic societies doing? They're evolving into not-so-liberal democracies with human rights taking second place to "security" and profit. Once again, the US leads the way and the rest of the western world follows. I'd like to be more optimistic, but somedays I truely feel that the great democratic experiment is doomed to be a slow and ignominious failure.

Apathy is not the cause of democracy's downfall. The sad reality is that a great many people simply to not agree with our free society, with our rule of law or with our casteless social structure. These people are your friends, your neighbours and coworkers, and secretly they support presidents like Putin, and laws that ban street rallies and protests. They're simply waiting for the time when it becomes acceptable to voice those opinions once more. That time may be closer than you think.

Not so secretly, I long for a libertarian to lower taxes, and leave me and everybody else the f*ck alone to live their lives as they see fit. Sadly, the very sort of people who are attracted to and ultimately end up in positions of power are those who won't leave you alone, and insist on bending you to their will.

Not so secretly, I long for a libertarian to lower taxes, and leave me and everybody else the f*ck alone to live their lives as they see fit. Sadly, the very sort of people who are attracted to and ultimately end up in positions of power are those who won't leave you alone, and insist on bending you to their will.

While I agree with much of what the Libertarians say with regard to less government restrictions on individual freedoms and lower taxes, they also advocate less government regulation of industry (i

Vladimir Putin has enjoyed almost rock star like popularity in Russia for his nearly 2 terms now. In fact, several years ago, there was a chart topping single called "Someone like Putin" that was the rage throughout the country (someone that won't leave me, etc, etc). It seems to me that if someone comes along to challenge him, it will take someone of equal or greater popularity to pull it off (someone like Kasparov). Also, I don't really know why, but Russians (at least in Russia), seem to crave a heavy handed goverment, and Putin is more than willing to give it to them. Unfortunately, we really don't understand this phenomenon in the west.

I am half canadian, half russian and I sort of know what the heavy handedness is. Its just like that, and you have to live in it to see it. You can't really understand it. Either you know it or you don't:-) Its like going to mars. Being oxygen breathing animal you can't breathe whatever there is there. It think thats is very much like it. Same way I cringe when I see russianisms from russian immigrants here. They have hard time adapting.I think it comes from unadulterated honesty, something is avoided in w

The U.S. has been at war with the socialist bogeyman since Marx published. I don't need to say too much how much the Gilded Age wealthy used their newspapers and their government influence to convince people that labor laws = unions = communism = anarchy = slavery = the end of the world. Those men were the among the worst slavers in history. They should have felt right at home.

After the Revolution in Russia, the entire myth building machine went into batshit insane mode. We spend untold trillions of dollars and who knows how many billions of hours of people's lives fighting the Commie Devil. Certainly millions were slaughtered -- we killed a million alone in Vietnam. Now we have the Terrorist Menace, and they are sticking us for trillions more and killing hundreds of thousands in the name of security, and even invoke the democracy meme again, tho it really doesn't apply. The last of the Commie war is still being fought against a dirt poor Cuba which would be a damned sight less poor if we hadn't embargoed it for half a century.

Russia wasn't the almighty military enemy the commie warriors said it was. The story of how the Pentagon and the CIA were pummeled into line, despite evidence they knew about that said they were far weaker and poorer than the civilian warriors demanded they see it, still remains to be told. It's a story Americans will not listen to. We had our first Iraq over sixty years ago.

Soooo. Soviet Union fell, turned into a hell on earth controlled by crime syndicates. We were fine with that! At least we can do business with the guy who cuts a prostitute up for holding back. So Putin has golden plumbing *on his airplane*. That's capitalism, by definition better than anything.

Now we have a fascist state rising from the criminal state. We're still okay with that. Putin has a good soul, Bush saw it in his eyes. A little polonium and a few reporters with their brains splattered in front of their homes is just the stuff of hard politics. Cheney probably smirks when he hears about that.

They could strip people to the bone with boiling oil, and we'd STILL think they were better than them commies. As a matter of fact, they ARE boiling people's skin off with vats of oil. We don't care.

Vonnegut said that what we see today is the rise to power of psychopathic personalities. People like them because they are decisive. But, they are decisive because they don't care about the repercussions of their decisions. Putin is strong, and Russians like strong men, as Hendrick Smith wrote. I'd like to point out that PP leaders also require a large population of PPs who don't care either. Without masses of people with no moral sense, PPs can't keep power.

As long as unions are illegal and we can do business with someone, we don't fuck with them. Rule by kleptocrats. I'd rather have a socialist neighbor who spends all their money on health care and full employment than a hypermilitary power ruled by psychopaths. But we're so fixated on our century and a half of war (on the behalf of the very wealthy who created the war in fear of change in their power) on commies, unions and suchlike that we will support a thousand mirrorshaded mass murderers who will sell us bananas at near cost than a socialist who wants to spread the wealth. The mountain of bodies we have dedicated to the god of money must be a thousand feet tall.

Russia's core problem with "freedom" and "democracy" was that they were Russians. What they do to the weak is part of their culture, not about Marxism. communism was our bogeyman, not theirs, as we see clearly now. They have a fascist soul, and it doesn't matter how the paychecks are cut -- it's about power. But we loves us some businessmen. We don't want democracy, we want money, we want gas pipelines, we want cheap labor. We are looking straight into the face of pure evil and laughing as it beats the democrats in the streets of Russia. Fuck those losers, they were blocking traffic. Party on.

The very fact that Franco rose to power and established his fascist government at the very same time the neighboring countries were liberated is a huge indicator that fascism wasn't that much of a problem for the western governments/elites than the threat of a social revolution posed.

While after Europe was rid of the plague of German fascism the socialists/workers in Spain struggled against their own fascist dictator, who was backed by the usual suspects (i.e. a bigger part of the military and the old 'e

I don't understand why this is funny -- I mean, it's a play on words, sure. Do that many Slashdotters think Czech was ever part of the USSR? It wasn't. Beyond that, Kasparov was born in Azerbaijan, which is nowhere near Czech. Also, for the mods: his name is Garry. With two arrs.

Prague Spring [wikipedia.org], Polish People's Republic wasn't part of USSR either but we helped beating Czechoslovakia into submisission. Don't forget about Warsaw Pact [wikipedia.org] and other means that Russia used or is using to make it's neighbours obedient, even today. I will be trolled into oblivion but whatever.

I don't deny that Czech has had close ties with Russia in the past. What I was confused by was basically what happened between A (editor), B (GGP), and C (mods):

A: Dude from RussiaB: Czech joke!C: LOL!!!!!MODMODMODMODMOD

I mean, there's no denying that New York and Texas have a relationship as well, but you don't see this being funny (well, pretend it'd be funny on its merits):-What's a Texan's favorite broadway show?-New York, New York!-LOL!!!

Like Martin Luther King of a prior generation, Gary Kasparov leads a peaceful demonstration. Then, the Russian authorities pounce on him, arrest him, and drag him to be booked at the police station.

The Russian stormtroopers then club some of the demonstators.
When we see the phalanx of Russian special-forces police numbering nearly 9000 (outnumbering the demonstrators by 6 to 1), we are reminded of the American police and their dogs as they nearly mauled the civil-rights demonstrators of the 1960s.

Advancing? Bullshit. They are just catching up by stealing the technologies from the Western world and then playing with their currency exchange rates to maximize their profit. If they were advancing at the speed of light then you would assume that there would have been some major scientific and technological breakthroughs that came from China in the last 10 or so years, right? You know, something on the order of the Internet, the cellphone, the transistor, the Big Bang theory, plate tectonics, DNA, etc. Start naming some.

The heavy handed leadership just means that the government is run by something similar to the Mafia. It doesn't mean that it is the right way to rule.

Don't forget the oodles of dirt cheap labor. They have literally hundreds of millions of people who think getting paid a few dollars a day for factory labor is fantastic-and for them it IS fantastic when compared to raising chickens and rice on a farm in the middle of nowhere. I think the only real reason India lags behind china is BECAUSE they have democratic institutions.

The Russians may have cheap labor, but that's only because a decent living and viable middle class is being denied them. Russia now has less than half the population of the old Soviet Union - less than 150 million and falling. So there they sit, on the greatest mass of land and resources of any nation with a population that barely bests that of Japan. Their greedy, self-serving Kremlin masters steal anything of value, triggering a tremendous brain-drain, withering the army, and rusting the navy. They are surrounded by energy-hungry nations and remain slaves to the classic Russian Paranoia handed down through the centuries. And, as usual, no matter who's running the place they always employ ham-fisted diplomacy and civil oppression.
They still have respectable infrastructure and an somewhat educated workforce to draw upon. Russia could be mighty, wealthy, and successful. Oh well.

there are times in life I wish I had mod points and this is one of them.
I'm a big fan of the Russian culture, I find it facinating but the Russian government IMO just can't be trusted. Russia is a country inundated with organized crime and instead of stomping it out the Russian leaders ride the mafia all the way to power. It's sad to see such potential go to waste. During the space race Russia truly did innovate in the beginning giving us yanks one hell of a run for our money until they just couldn't keep

Don't use modpoints to 'further your opinion', they are meant to further increase CONSTRUCTIVE discussion, not as a means to 'slap down your opponents'.As a side note, I happen to basically agree with both you and Kreplock, however my uneasy feeling has a root in the 150 million statistic without citing any sources.I do not question the accuracy of that number (not the issue for my concern here) Kreplock uses, only the fact that no sources were offered + your ability to 'jump on the bandwagon' with modpoint

How do you think the U.S. advanced so rapidly during the Industrial Revolution? It wasn't because they did a lot of innovating themselves - they stole a LOT of technology from Europe, over Europe's protests (with lots of outrage about "intellectual property theft").

Now China is doing the same thing the U.S. (and the rest of the Western countries), with pretty much the same we-cant-compete! whining from the "victim" countries. Funny how that works out.

I have to agree, I can't think of any examples, and yet the post gets modded +4 informative...either everyone else on Slashdot knows of hundreds of examples or/. is becoming very liberal in it's US bashing w/out evidence...

Okay, how about Samuel Slater [wikipedia.org], who took an apprenticeship in a British factory, memorised the workings of the machines. In evasion of British laws limiting the distribution the details of such inventions, he disguised himself as a farmhand to leave the country with the knowledge, which he used to set up factories in America, earning himself fame and wealth, despite basically being an IP thief. Whatever one thinks of patents and the draconian IP laws applicable to such inventions, he was let in on a trade secret, and used deception to succeed in stealing that secret.

So anyway, there's an example, no need to accuse people of making things up. Can we go back to the US-bashing now we have evidence?

US didn't respect European patents. This was a major dispute in the 19th century. England had patented many new industrial machines, and the US was the one place where these machines could be used without paying royalties.

Giving concrete examples would be silly, since it is more or less everything: Machines, factory designs, steam engines, locomotives, etc.

Take a look at Russian infrastructure and then come back and talk about advancing at the speed of light. Russia is going backwards, back to the autocracy that has been present since the time of the Czars. The only thing keeping Russia afloat right now are energy prices. It is the farthest thing from the Chinese economic boom that I can imagine. Arresting people and shipping them off to Siberia is still a treasured right of the rulers. I suggest Kasparov catch the first flight out of Russia and let the

Geez, China's relative growth is not a product of totalitarianism. It's the result of a Capitalist experiment conducted by Britain concerning a territory of theirs known as Hong Kong. Hong Kong was returned to China in 1997, currently Hong Kong is still a business world mecca. Mainland China is stuck somewhere between a poverty stricken totalitarian sh*thole and something of a socialist capitalism, essentially torn between business and oldworld governance. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hong_Kong#Economy [wikipedia.org]

He writes subjectively that enslaving people has improved China's welfare. Yes it is a lie and he offered nothing to support his claims. Maybe this doesn't justify a -1 troll but we don't really have a -1 wtf? do we?

On one hand it is suprising that Russia would want to arrest such a famous
person for such a trivial political act.

Although Kasparov has fame from a rather unusual source, do you really
think the same thing doesn't happen here in the US?

On the other hand, totalitarianism knows no friends..

If you protest without permission, you can expect to spend the night in the
county lock-up (or worse, but at least the rich n' famous can take some
comfort in the difficulty of "rendering" celebrities).

In the last years of Boris Yeltsin's presidency, Russians began to realize that their post-Soviet capitalistic reforms had been too much too fast, leaving the economy in even worse shambles than before, and allowing the rise of the Russian mafia from the chaos. Yeltsin decided it was time to slow down reforms and let people catch up, so he turned to a little known St. Petersburg political aide with a growing reputation for efficiency to be his last prime minister and implement the slow down. That man was ex-KGB agent Vladimir Putin.

Putin slowed down the capitalistic reforms, and then some. He returned some major companies to state-control, including most of the media. The economy is much improved during his tenure. He revived the secret police en masse. When a major oil tycoon decided to form a political party to challenge Putin, the tycoon was arrested on mafia-related charges, and his company was taken over by the state. Similar things have happened to a number of major political opponents. The court system has lost much of its veneer of independence from the executive branch. Putin is well-known for cronyism and a preference for Soviet-style rule. The Bush administration and others have publicly chastised Putin for hurting democracy. In fact, it wouldn't be unreasonable to suspect him of close ties to major players in the mafia, though impossible to prove. Right now the favorite to succeed Putin appears to be one of his former KGB associates who is now one of his top deputies. If you want specific charges that opponents have leveled against Putin, read anything by Anna Politkovskaya, such as Putin's Russia. Just be aware she has a strong anti-Putin bias (which may be why she was murdered).

Kasparov is just one of the latest to attempt an anti-Putin political movement. Obviously Kasparov could expect a meager fine for holding a public demonstration in a spot where he didn't have a permit. The subtext is much more interesting. Pro-Kremlin youth gathering where he expected to protest? Was it really arranged before Kasparov's? I doubt it, especially the way this exact same excuse is being used repeatedly across multiple cities. Who knows; it's hard to be sure what's going on in Russia under Putin.

This is exactly the point Kasparov has been trying to make. An important part of playing chess is understanding how to assess your own strength impartially. Kasparov fully understands he is playing from a weak position (he said so on BBC Radio last week). Let's hope he can use this knowledge to do better than others who might rush in foolhardily thinking they are in a psoition of strength.

And they need land and resources.
You must be kidding. Saying that Russia is in need of land and resources is like saying that China is facing a manpower shortage. Even accounting for the percentage of the country covered in permafrost, they have more usable land than any other country in the world. And as for their natural resources, they are hardly hurting there either.